How to feed less grain?

[princess chicken]

Hi there, I've had chickens for a while and I've recently been wondering, with the prices of chicken feed pretty high around here, is there a way to feed chickens less grain and more forage/scraps? Or some ideas for getting cheaper grain? would love some advice. Thanks

 

[cackleberrycam]

An idea for getting cheaper grain: My neighbors gave me two barrels full of old food storage grain, and I I occasionally use that to feed my hens. You could use old food storage or get it from neighbors.

I also know that their are some breeds of chicken that are "aggressive foragers". (Which means that they are really good at finding food for themselves.) What breeds of chicken do you have?

 

[mightymax]

Do you let your chickens free-range? I found my feed bill dwindle down to half of what it was once I started turning them out everyday. My chickens love their fruits and vegetables so every day I make them all a nice Romaine lettuce salad, with cabbage, carrots, celery and whatever else is on sale in the produce section of the supermarket. They just go crazy over watermelon and cantaloupe !!! Honeydews? Not so much. If you can't or don't want to actually purchase any vegetables for them, you can always ask to speak to either the produce manager or the store manager and see if they'll hold back their boxes of 'trimmings' for you. You'd probably have to stick to a specific pick up schedule, but if it got you even a case of trimmings, I think it'd be worth it...

 

[Demidog]

We grow sunflower and corn for our chickens which we mix with the bought in food. And my husband just swapped a whole bag of corn from last year for a bag of wheat. I also give them things from my veg patch. This year i planted perpetual spinach for the first time and it's growing like crazy! You're supposed to keep picking it to encourage it to grow more and it's way too much for us. I'm putting a big handful of leave into the chickens every day and they're loving it. Plus i give them all our fruit &veg scraps and let them out to forage in the garden too.